Aung San Suu Kyi defends Rohingya crackdown

Myanmar leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday denied her country’s military committed genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority group. She told the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the allegations reflected an “incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation in Rakhine state.”

Is Myanmar on trial? Suu Kyi delivered her speech on the second day of an emergency legal hearing to decide whether “protective measures” would help prevent further killings in the country also known as Burma. Gambia filed a case in The Hague accusing the Myanmar military of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention. More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 after the military responded violently when some of the group attacked security posts. Human rights groups accused the military of rape, murder, and burning homes, saying the actions amounted to genocide.

Dig deeper: Read my 2017 report in WORLD Magazine on how Christian missionaries stepped in to assist displaced Rohingya Muslims.